When I chose to fill my life with artistic creation… I was only an adolescent. I remember the moment. well, I was 14 years old and felt suddenly consumed by a desire, a need to draw… Since when I have been using all the artistic mediums within my reach: drawing, painting, embroidery, collage. A part of me remains with that adolescent eagerness to discover and create in an artistic sense.
While having attained a certain age, the desire – to live in a world of color and make artistic discoveries – is undiminished. Actually, it is probably even stronger than in my younger years. Following any period of doubt and inactivity I have always returned to my brushes and palette of colors, having a near constant need to express myself without using words.
However, in 2012 everything changed after a phone call from a doctor who told me that I was suffering from a neurodegenerative disease… After getting over the shock I sat myself down (in a wheel chair!) and threw myself into my work, which, as well as coloring my imagination, has since served as a comforting presence and safety valve for my frustrations.
My universe is dominated by color. Whether painting or embroidering, color is always as important as the subject itself. But how to speak more of one’s work? To what genre do I belong?
It has always been difficult for me to answer such questions. I would say that above all I am a figurative artist. But also, no doubt, part of the “outsider” movement.
Nature too has always inspired me. In discovering the artistic potential of embroidery, some subjects have become recurrent: mothers, black Madonna’s, mermaids, Little Red Riding Hood, Frida K.
As an illustrator I also make collages, using torn up pieces from old books, old photos, various fabrics and embroidery, and paintings… All these mediums are thus mixed to bring new life to those lives and faces long since forgotten.
My universe, year on year, is constantly renewed in an exploration of the world of childhood, color, drawings, textiles, embroidery, and painting. I work in the silence of forgotten faces and feelings… repairing and trying to retrieve them, sewing them into re-existence, reclaiming and bringing them back… with delicacy, gently, soaking them in color
When the nose has dyslexia, the conventions of clean and dirty mutate amuck-
Nightmares of being dunked in vats of perfume become the norm-
Social status disintegrates and intimacy with a skunk brings joy-
The man burrows into remote dung heaps further and further away from the tyrannies of soap-
When the nose has dyslexia, predictable roles and behavior are scrambled anew-
Musk entrenched supermen get stampeded by berserk fawns in heat-
Germ-Phobics fondle dung beetles whom with freshly molested vigor, do hind leg roll ups of squeeky clean solid citizens-
A prudish school marm finds a hidden rabid snapping turtle in her soul after being bitten by rotten apples given jaws by the teacher’s pet gone astray-
When the nose has dyslexia, rampant desire surpasses grandiose expectation.
A wart on a baboon’s ass blossoms into a more fragrant-than-thou perfume garden berry infecting a bestial psychopath who then penetrates with valor the furious posteriors of mandrills shimmying with profane delight
Eager vines of algae growing up from centuries of neglected teeth, climb greedily towards the fortune of a fresh breath heiress-
Gooey-Pollyannas wash their mouths out with soap before reciting mantras of bland nicety to contrite career criminals gnawing on clean conscience bunions jutting from angel’s feet-
19 of ClubsTrio of Femme SirensAuf Die SchaukelPhosphorescent Clown SquigglesLucky LimulusBrunette March
When the nose has dyslexia, sacred values of societal dust are sculpted into new poisons by the playful rogue nostril metastasizing-
The Outhouse-Leper becomes a vengeful king, skinning the pillars of communities, turning the hides into outhouse doormats-
Blind Peeping Toms suddenly regain their sight munching on outhouse-doormat brittle–thus seeing and tasting time honored models of proper conduct-
Yeast Infected Vaginas curtsy with hypnotic finesse, flirting with clownish tumescent yam jam giraffes, spurting forth voyeurs turning into martyrs, turning into manic surgeons whittling skunky joy toys in a sleepless scalpel trance-
When the nose has dyslexia, the lightning of childhood memory strikes unlikely victims–oceans of crystallized feelings awaken from deep sleeps re-inventing the heart-
A hardened Loan Shark gets entangled, softened and diced up by the frail sadnesses evoked by the rubbery wet scent of his baby sister’s favorite dolly lost in a distant rainstorm-
A loud mouthed schoolyard bully becomes a mute wise old sage, transcending all utterance, ruminating inwardly, building shrines of cookie crumb folly from the remnants of desserts the bully once coerced from the trembling hands of weaklings entombed in the bowels of forgotten grammar school lunch rooms-
The cold stares of ultra strict baby sitters, soberly stretch a whiny little brat’s dirty diapers into an almighty circus tent tundra sheltering cleaner than clean orphans sired by soap bubbles popping-
Formative Foodchain
When the nose has dyslexia, embarrassment lurks in excess.
The man narrowly escapes the lewd clutches of Germ-Phobics hiding in lairs of undigested corn kernels waiting to leap out and fondle him.
He burrows inexorably deeper into remote dung heaps further and further away from the tyrannies of soap, eventually reaching paradise, where fragrant nirvana is sweetest, and stench lost its voice to the carrion bird who sings dirty in reverse.
The man enters The-Nose-Has-Dyslexia restaurant, ordering a Skunky-Joy-Toy kiss smothered in freshly molested dung beetle sauce.
As frail diced up cubes of sensitive Loan Shark say grace, crowds of manic surgeons saddened by lost wet dollies, serve the meal in a sleepless scalpel trance-
The man tastes paradise, blessed by the voice of stench stolen by the carrion bird who sings dirty in reverse.
Suddenly The-Outhouse-Leper-Turned-Vengeful-King appears, interrupting the man eating, pedantically assailing him with correct table manner etiquette, forcing a squeeky clean knife and fork into his dungy hands…
Richard Gessner’s fiction has been published in Air Fish: an anthology of speculative work, Rampike, Ice River, Coe Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Happy, The Act, Sein und Werden, Skidrow Penthouse, The Pannus Index, Fiction International and many other magazines. A collection, Excerpts from the Diary of a Neanderthal Dilettante & The Man in the Couch was published by Bomb Shelter Props. Gessner’s drawings and paintings have appeared in Raw Vision, Courier News, Asbury Park Press, Rampike, Skidrow Penthouse, and exhibited at Pleiades Gallery, Hamilton Street Gallery, Cry Baby Gallery, The Court Gallery and the Donald B. Palmer Museum. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
“The Amazing Richard Gessner, Wizard of the word, and Alchemist of the image” -Vincent Czyz May 24, 2022
THIS WRITING IS AN AUTHORIZED DUPLICATION WITH PERMISSION AND EXPRESSED CONSENT
I had the desire to paint and draw very early on but I didn’t practice much because I didn’t have any confidence in myself. I was not attracted by academic drawing, I was self-taught and I did not know how to draw. It took me a long time to find my way, I had to hold on, experiment, let go and everything went better when I understood that I should no longer try to have control but welcome the unexpected and appropriate it. Then began a dialogue with the invisible
Then I use pencils, gouache or pastels to give shape to these presences that appear in the material. For the black and white drawings, they are made with charcoal and black chalk in automatic drawing.
I work with fluid materials to begin with, such as water, ink and watercolor, because these mediums are particularly conducive, as far as I am concerned, to revealing the beyond appearances, they help me to cross borders and to access parallel worlds.
Concerning the cyanotype technique, it is an old photographic printing or reproduction technique, I use it to make multiple prints in limited series of some of my drawings: it consists in putting on a sheet of paper a chemical product which is sensitive to light, one puts on the sheet a negative of the photo which one wishes to reproduce (for me a negative of my drawings which I prepare myself), it is necessary to put it then in the sun a few minutes then to pass the sheet under water and there always appears in blue a reproduction of the drawing drawn from the negative. I particularly appreciate the blue obtained with this technique which is close to the dreamlike world.
My inspiration can come from everyday things, I like to look at where appearances fall and see the magic in a realistic environment. I am for example very inspired by tomato slices, when I cut up tomatoes while preparing food I marvel at what I see inside each slice, I find the tomato particularly inhabited by a wonderful world, hence the origin of my Tomato Heart drawings.
I also made a series of drawings from photos of the surface of the river, these photos were for me like a freeze-frame of a story that the river tells or perhaps this river water is a bearer of memory, that of the countries and times it has crossed? So I drew from these photos to give shape to what I saw appearing.
Nature, women, animals or hybrid creatures, spirituality are the main sources of inspiration for my paintings, all set in a dreamlike universe. As in tales and fables, my drawings try to give us back the sense of wonder and to open doors to a magical world where everything is possible
The self is the unconscious and conscious that allows you to enter these imaginary worlds of creation, that is why it is important
Bueno el yo es el inconsciente y consiente que te permite entrar a estos mundos imaginarios de creación por eso es importante
I knew when I entered the experimental artist school and I liked all the artistic disciplines such as sculpture, engraving, drawing, forge, in short, I wanted to learn all the arts and be good at it with a lot of discipline and read the theoretical and aesthetic knowledge, and I realized that I could do it.
Bueno supe cuando entre a la escuela experimental artista y me gustaron todas las disciplinas artísticas como escultura grabado dibujo forja en fin todas las artes quería aprender y ser bueno en ello con mucha disciplina y leer el conocimiento estético lo teórico y me di cuenta que podía hacerlo
The environment has a strong influence on my paintings sketches sculptures from the observation and reflection of nature as something as small as a seed or as big as a tree and as infinite as a hill and from an insect to a bird in flight
El entorno tiene una fuerte influencia sobre mis pinturas bocetos esculturas desde la observación y la reflexión de la naturaleza como algo tan pequeño como una semilla o tan grande como árbol y tan infinito como un cerro y de un insecto a un pájaro en vuelo
It inspires me when I get up every morning and breathe the pure air of my mountains and feel that I am alive again to create with my hands and my eyes and feel the smells of my trees
Me inspira cuando me levanto todas las mañanas y respirar aire puro de mis montañas y sentirme que estoy viví otra ves para crear con mis manos y mis ojos y sentir los olores de mis árboles
Looking at nature influences my work and the action of carefully observing the plants and everything that surrounds me is part of my daily work.
En mi trabajo influye el mirar la naturaleza y tener la acción de observar detenidamente las plantas y todo lo que me rodea es parte de mi trabajo diario
I read many authors and artists bibliographies, as many as ancient and contemporary books on aesthetics, books on theorists and mathematicians, I like it a lot, and I am investigating fractal logarithms, why life was created that way, matter multiplies thousands of times and infinitely. that what I want in my work
Bueno leo muchos autores y bibliografías de artista tantos como antiguos y contemporánea libros de estéticas libros de los teóricos y matemáticos me gusta mucho y estoy investigando los logaritmos fractales por qué la vida se creo de esa manera se multiplica Miles de veces y infinitamente la materia y eso lo que quiero en mi obra
Rene has exhibited work in Chile and Argentina. He is involved in many cultural art programs that have related to hospitals, children and teaching art professionally.
René ha expuesto obra en Chile y Argentina. Está involucrado en muchos programas de arte cultural relacionados con hospitales, niños y la enseñanza del arte profesionalmente.
“My concern is the human figure as a feeling of primitive and irrational states, whose main point is the heads, universal thought of the creation of man and center of the universe. All this led to a mutation of the plastic and pictorial language”.
“Mi preocupación es la figura humana como sentimiento de estados primitivos e irracionales, cuyo punto principal son las cabezas, pensamiento universal de la creación del hombre y centro del universo. Todo esto llevado a un mutamiento del lenguaje plástico y pictórico”.
The self is the unconscious and conscious that allows you to enter these imaginary worlds of creation, that is why it is important
Bueno el yo es el inconsciente y consiente que te permite entrar a estos mundos imaginarios de creación por eso es importante
I knew when I entered the experimental artist school and I liked all the artistic disciplines such as sculpture, engraving, drawing, forge, in short, I wanted to learn all the arts and be good at it with a lot of discipline and read the theoretical and aesthetic knowledge, and I realized that I could do it.
Bueno supe cuando entre a la escuela experimental artista y me gustaron todas las disciplinas artísticas como escultura grabado dibujo forja en fin todas las artes quería aprender y ser bueno en ello con mucha disciplina y leer el conocimiento estético lo teórico y me di cuenta que podía hacerlo
The environment has a strong influence on my paintings sketches sculptures from the observation and reflection of nature as something as small as a seed or as big as a tree and as infinite as a hill and from an insect to a bird in flight
El entorno tiene una fuerte influencia sobre mis pinturas bocetos esculturas desde la observación y la reflexión de la naturaleza como algo tan pequeño como una semilla o tan grande como árbol y tan infinito como un cerro y de un insecto a un pájaro en vuelo
It inspires me when I get up every morning and breathe the pure air of my mountains and feel that I am alive again to create with my hands and my eyes and feel the smells of my trees
Me inspira cuando me levanto todas las mañanas y respirar aire puro de mis montañas y sentirme que estoy viví otra ves para crear con mis manos y mis ojos y sentir los olores de mis árboles
Looking at nature influences my work and the action of carefully observing the plants and everything that surrounds me is part of my daily work.
En mi trabajo influye el mirar la naturaleza y tener la acción de observar detenidamente las plantas y todo lo que me rodea es parte de mi trabajo diario
I read many authors and artists bibliographies, as many as ancient and contemporary books on aesthetics, books on theorists and mathematicians, I like it a lot, and I am investigating fractal logarithms, why life was created that way, matter multiplies thousands of times and infinitely. that what I want in my work
Bueno leo muchos autores y bibliografías de artista tantos como antiguos y contemporánea libros de estéticas libros de los teóricos y matemáticos me gusta mucho y estoy investigando los logaritmos fractales por qué la vida se creo de esa manera se multiplica Miles de veces y infinitamente la materia y eso lo que quiero en mi obra
Rene has exhibited work in Chile and Argentina. He is involved in many cultural art programs that have related to hospitals, children and teaching art professionally.
René ha expuesto obra en Chile y Argentina. Está involucrado en muchos programas de arte cultural relacionados con hospitales, niños y la enseñanza del arte profesionalmente.
“My concern is the human figure as a feeling of primitive and irrational states, whose main point is the heads, universal thought of the creation of man and center of the universe. All this led to a mutation of the plastic and pictorial language”.
“Mi preocupación es la figura humana como sentimiento de estados primitivos e irracionales, cuyo punto principal son las cabezas, pensamiento universal de la creación del hombre y centro del universo. Todo esto llevado a un mutamiento del lenguaje plástico y pictórico”.
I’ve been making art my entire life, I actually remember my 1st studio was a closet in my bedroom, I probably was about 6 or 7 years old
Top Left: 2015 mixed media work The Rules of Science Top Center:It’s All I Can Do, 30inx22in, mixed media on paper, July, 2022 Top Right:The Giving, mixed media on canvas, 65inx50in June 2009 Bottom Center: Gather, acrylic on paper, 22inx30in, July 2022
There are many different kinds of artists in my family from lacrosse stick makers, stone carvers, beadwork artist, leather workers and of course painters
Jay Carrier studio scenes
I paint my life, my thoughts, the philosophies that I’ve studied, the culture and society that I was born into.
December 18, 2012 Painting. Jay Carrier
Left: mixed media on wood, 52inx 52in August 2018 Center:Mother and Child, 44inx 30.5in, mixed media on paper, 2014 October 2019 Right: mixed media on paper, 30in x 22in
I was born on the six nations rez near Brantford Ontario, moved to Niagara Falls NY when I was 4
Left: December 1, 2021 Painting Right:Monuments, oil on canvas, 60inx 57in July 2020
Adapted painting April 2020
Skull ship, acrylic on paper, 22inx30in, July 2022
The things that influence me were not necessarily art movements. The people of the six nations used what we call traditional art in contemporary society are made for different reasons. There was no term for art in our societies
Night painting, acrylic on canvas, 14inx 11in, July 2022
I paint intuitively so spirit can travel unimpeded
written by Jay Carrier
Left:Night Sky, mostly oil on wood 36inx 41in 3-4in, June 2022 Center: Couple, oil on wood, 36inx 48in, June 2022 Right: mixed media on canvas, December 2021
“The places that we dwell and live, the relationships that we form with the natural environment, the people that we surround ourselves with, and the many things that influence our thoughts are reflected in the paintings chosen for this show. I was born and briefly grew up on the Six Nations Reservation but predominately was raised in the Southend downtown Niagara Falls. I was constantly amazed by the city’s surroundings, the river, and, the Niagara gorge. Many memories were made that have a direct reference in these paintings; there were exciting times, there were hard times, there were happy times, and tragic times. These experiences in some regard formed the thoughts and ideas reflected in these paintings.”
Left: oil, spay paint, oil stick on canvas, 66inx72in. April 2017 Right: multi media painting on canvas August 2019
“There is a poetically tragic, glamorous, and beautiful reality about Niagara Falls. The beauty and seduction of the water as it travels, the brutal stark reality of living in a repressed small city, the fallen industry, the curio identity that was what the world would see…. these are the catalysts for exploring my art in relationship to the city.” -Jay Carrier
Jay Carrier at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, New York on September 18, 2021 photo by Dawn Carrier
JAY CARRIER 2115 Lockport Road Niagara Falls, New York 14304 Phone: (716) 534-0489 Studio: 20, NACC, 1201 Pine Avenue, Niagara Falls, New York 14301 e-mail: carrierj@roadrunner.com carrierjay@yahoo.com
EDUCATION 1993-94 The University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, attended 1 year Masters Program 1993-95 The University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Bachelors of Fine Arts 1986-87, 92 The College of Santa Fe, New Mexico, attended, Major, Fine Arts: Painting, Sculpture 1984 Buffalo State College, Attended 1984 Niagara County Community College, Associates in Fine Arts
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Free To Roam Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo New York 2020 We Took Things With Us, Buffalo Arts Studio Gallery, Buffalo New York 2019 Places of Transformation/ City Indian, the NACC Gallery Niagara Falls New York 2016 The City is Clean, Recent works, Gallery Eleneneleven, Buffalo, New York 2016 Recent work by: Jay Carrier, Garden Gallery Niagara Arts and Cultural Center, Niagara Falls, New York 2014 Recent Drawings, The Garden Gallery, Niagara Arts and Cultural Center Niagara Falls New York 2006 Risen from the Ashes of 2 Fires, American Indian Community House Gallery, New York New York 2004 Chautauqua Center for Visual Arts, Chautauqua Institution Gallery, Chautauqua New York 2002 Polar Visions, Niagara Art and Cultural Center, Niagara Falls, New York 1995 Nothing is Sacred, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe New Mexico 1993 The Blind Pig Gallery, Champaign, Illinois 1993 The Union Gallery, The University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana 1993 The South Garage Gallery, The University of Illinois at Champaign/Urban
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2020-2021 Native American and First Nations Contemporary Art, K Art Gallery, Buffalo New York 2018 At This Time, Burchfield Art Center, Buffalo New York 2017 Beyond the Barrel, Annual Exhibition Niagara Arts and Cultural Center Niagara Falls New York 2016 Amid/In WNY – Part 6, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, New York 2016 Featured Artist, 24 Below Gallery, Niagara Falls, New York, 2015-2016 2015 Stick, Stone & Steel, Niagara Art and Cultural Center, Niagara Falls, New York 2015 Diversity Works: Selections from the Gerald Mead Collection, El Museo, Buffalo, New York 2011 4 from 6: Four Artists from Six Nations curated by Shelley Niro, Hamilton Artists Inc., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 2011 Haudenosaunee: Elements: Works by Artists from the Six Nations of the Iroquois, Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York 2008 Burgeoning: Artists Invite Artists, You Me Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 2006 First Nations Art 2006, Woodland Cultural Center, Brantford, Ontario, Canada 2005 From Deep in the Forest: An Exhibition of Fine Woodworking, Niagara Falls, New York 2004 First Nations Art 2004, Woodland Cultural Center, Brantford, Ontario, Canada 2004 Collects Buffalo State, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York 2003 First Nations Art 2003, Woodland Culture Center, Brantford, Ontario, Canada 2002 1st Annual Exhibition, Niagara Art and Cultural Center Niagara Falls, New York, 2002 The Pan American Exposition Centennial: Images of the American Indian, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York 1997 Where We Stand, Fenimore House Museum, Cooperstown, New York 1995 Expressions of the Spirit, The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, New Mexico 1994 In the Shadow of the Eagle, The Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, New York 1993 The Second Floor Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri 1988 The Galleries, Buffalo, New York 1988 American Indian Institute, Iroquois Art, Connecticut, Washington
Biennials
2012 The Other New York 2012 XL Projects Syracuse NY
2007 Beyond/ In WNY Biennial, Castellani Museum, Niagara Falls NY
FELLOWSHIPS/RESIDENCIES
Art Matters Inc., New York, New York, 1994-1995 Artist In Residence, Native American Center for the Living Arts, “The Turtle”, Niagara Falls, NY 1987
My name is Shahd El-Khouly and I am a Egyptian visual artist. I study psychology and art. Psychology is my passion. I spend most of my time with art, artists and studying psychology because it is a science that deserves every minute we spend reading and searching for it.
I also participated in many exhibitions. Which is being held in Egypt and I am currently participating in the International Surrealist Exhibition, the first part of which was held here in Egypt, and the next part will be held in France next year
وأنا فنانة تشكيلية مصرية مهتمة بالفن منذ الصغر. انا عمري 20 سنة. الآن أنا أدرس علم النفس والفن وعلموأنا النفس هو شغفي. أقضي معظم وقتي مع الفن والفنانين وعلم النفس لأنه علم يستحق كل دقيقة نقضيها في القراءة والبحث عنه. كما شاركت في العديد من المعارض. التي أقيمت في مصر وأشارك حاليًا في المعرض الدولي للسريالية، والذي أقيم الجزء الأول منه هنا في مصر ، والجزء التالي سيقام في فرنسا العام المقبل
written by Shahd El-Khouly
Shahd El khouli in The Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism /Maze of games and dreams /Alexandria
How do you put yourself into a trance or into a place that’s receptive to the subconsciousness?
I find the act of drawing in itself to be trance inducing. I first became obsessed with automatic drawing in high school because it felt like it would light up my brain and smooth out all of my anxious energy. It would literally feel like I was drawing my way out of a stupor and waking up to the strangeness of my own mind.
Drawing helps me reach that valuable state where I can feel awake and alert, yet simultaneously relaxed. I find that my breathing slows down when I’m drawing and time feels more fluid. It helps to have a quiet studio where I can go and disappear for hours at a time. I think of the imagination as a living thing that I have an ever evolving relationship with. If I meet it halfway and submerse myself in the creative process, I get to interact with and explore the subconscious and come back with artistic documentation.
What interests inform and inspire you?
So many things. I love outsider, folk, visionary, and ancient art. Whenever art is made from an inner need or impulse, I find it extremely valuable. I love children’s art. I have 2 kids and love watching the way their minds work. I love creative collaboration as a way to relate to another person’s mind and bring out something totally unexpected and new.
I’m interested in neuroscience and new scientific thought around the so called Hard Problem of Consciousness and Theories of Everything. I love to read. Especially speculative fiction, strange fiction, and comics. I’m hugely inspired by nature and spend a lot of time in the woods. Learning some carpentry skills is another thing that’s been opening me up to new art possibilities. Just sitting and trying to clearly see images or hear music in my head is an ongoing practice.
What role do you think the artist has in the 21st century?
The best thing an artist can do is follow their own unique impulse. Artists need to push back against the bizarre human drive to homogenize everything. They need to reach beyond the inadequate systems we live inside.
I think diversity of culture and human expression is the most valuable thing we can cultivate as a species. I also think it’s important for artists to have an anti-cruelty stance. There’s so much cruelty in our history and baked into our systems. I think the artist’s role is to look unflinchingly at this and attempt to untie those knots. Art can be part of the antidote to the bad ideas that seem to cling to our brains and stunt our evolution.
Have you experienced Lucid Dreaming or any kind of encounter with cosmic consciousness?
Yes, I’ve had quite a few experiences that have felt outside of normal cognitive experience. Each of these experiences feel incredibly valuable to me and I’m thankful for them. Mostly I’ve regretted it whenever I’ve tried to describe them to people. They feel like something to internalize and hold close. It’s easy to discount things that don’t fit with the narrative of the everyday, so I try to think about those experiences a lot and not let them fade into doubt.
When did you create or discover your own archetypical patterns?
I started with automatic drawing, just letting my hand draw without knowing where it would go. Through that, a lot of patterns and imagery naturally began to emerge and I would just kind of follow that. Through years of working in this way and contemplating the recurring symbols, a lot of ideas and feelings started taking shape. Making comics became a way to explore that more actively by trying to unlock the stories and concepts that my drawings were revealing to me.
Has your work ever lead you to an experience of intuition or synchronicity?
Following an artistic impulse is in itself an intuitive and synchronistic experience. It adds an extra dimension to my daily life and when I have positive momentum in my work, I feel like that crosses over into my daily life and helps me see connections and meaning. Putting my work out into the world has also allowed me to meet a lot of people I wouldn’t have met otherwise, so in that way, I feel like dedicating myself to making art has allowed me to have important friendships that have inspired and helped me grow.
What do you like to cook?
I love cooking. I cook almost every night. I like to make enchiladas with sauce made from scratch. I like making sushi, jambalaya, grilled pizza, salmon. It’s just fun to work a kitchen and try to be efficient with all the different elements in play and it’s satisfying to serve up something good to my family. Cleaning up the kitchen afterwards is not as fun.
Theo Ellsworth is a self-taught artist living in Montana. His previously published comics include Capacity, The Understanding Monster, Sleeper Car, and An Exorcism. The New York Times once called his work, Imagination at firehose intensity. He has been the recipient of the Lynd Ward Honor Book Prize and an Artist Innovation Award. He loves creative collaboration, cooking, and making family folk art with his kids. He is constantly making invisible performance art in his head that no one will ever see.
Gerald Stone’s roots flow from 1/2 Seminole and 1/8 Cherokee tribes: These worlds are, out of time, landscapes within landscapes, tribes, spirits, watchers, seekers, giants, red-haired women, murdered and missing, space stretched and bent, stories vibrating across time.
From a show at the Crocker Museum in Sacramento a write-up describes Gerald Stone as a “beloved local master artist”. Gerald himself just brushed off the accolades and calls his work “weird”. His stylized art, which he describes as a conversation between himself and his Creator, bridges traditional and contemporary styles and themes.
1947 Born in the far reaches of rural Oklahoma, Stone was a kid who liked to draw and has lived a life of peaks and valleys, always around the midline of art. Just 3 days before he was scheduled to enlist in the Army, headed most likely to Vietnam, he was accepted for a 2 year post graduated program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, a city often considered the center of the Native American art world.
In 2009 Gerald Stone finally had the successful solo exhibition. He now shows in only a few galleries and also sells from his home.
edited by Mitchell Pluto from SULΦUR surrealist jungle archive 29 OCT 2021
In the painting Vision Quest-Spiritual Sex there are several metaphors relating to antlers. Are there more details you can provide us to inform our understanding?
In one of my earliest painting classes we were instructed to create a composition, painting with a live male model, using some of the still life objects on the stage with him, and, our imagination. One of the objects was an antlered deer skull and in my painting, it replaced the model’s head. This was not an unfamiliar concept in Native American imagery but it was the first time for me to play with this concept. It definitely placed me into a spiritual realm I was not intending to explore. But I am a spiritual person so it felt okay to me to proceed. For me, antlered people represent spiritual people. But this antlered man was nude (as the male model was) and displayed a penis. Now this was certainly not a familiar concept in Native American imagery. It has been a concept that has developed and evolved over the years in my art recently culminating with these new paintings, “The Storyteller-Spiritual Sex” (I and II) and “Vision Quest-Spiritual Sex.”
Spiritual Nite (Beautiful Witch)
The painting Spiritual Nite expresses a nude female figure and an enigmatic figure emerging out of the woods. What hint could you give viewers to add their interpretation or apprehension?
The painting “Spiritual Nite (Beautiful Witch)” has evolved from a series of paintings of female nudes over the last twenty years that have evoked a spiritual content. I have met several witches in my life (one a former lover) and made a decision to name this evolving series Beautiful Witches. In this particular painting (and others in this series) I am working intuitively with no planned outcome. I usually start with a sketch of the figure and then develop content and background imagery right at the easel, often letting color and brushstroke inform the direction and meaning of the painting.
Mother or Beautiful Witch
Mother or Beautiful Witch transmits a sense of being fed but who are the mysterious figures behind her?
The painting “Mother (Beautiful Witch)” is an example of an idea evolving right in front of me. Originally, this painting started out a year earlier as a portrait of a tattooed woman with semi formal abstractions in the background. It had an interesting beginning but after awhile it felt lost and I changed direction in midstream. I painted over the background and the entire body of the figure while at the same time changing the position of her arms and the direction of her gaze (impulsive decision making). She was now squeezing her breast and I then painted a stream coming from it. At this point I made a sketch of it to explore options and possibilities. In the sketch, the stream coming from her breast turned into a stream of small fish each getting larger as it moved away from her body and then sketched images in the background that I was recognizing from the brushstrokes and color forms. Getting back to the painting, I added the stream of fluid coming from her breast and then had the inspiration to add a young rabbit catching that stream in its mouth, being fed, leading me to the title “Mother (Beautiful Witch).”
The owl and wolf figures emerged form the brushstrokes creating a drama in the painting. I have felt a connection to rabbits since I was a young boy and have developed several understandings of that connection. One is this: It’s the rabbits that watch over our houses at nite, protecting us from predators, intruders and disease. And also, it’s the rabbits that lead the lost out of the woods but sometimes the owl and wolf beings find them first. Both the painting and the little essay were developed independent of each other but form a natural union.
The Storyteller-Spiritual Sex II
The Storyteller-Spiritual Sex II language appears birthed from the mouth, words become things, places and people. Can you tutor the viewer a little bit about the pantheon or activity in this painting?
Storytelling is a tradition of many of the tribes in North America (and many indigenous cultures) including my own, the Ojibwa or Anishinaabe, as we call ourselves. It has been portrayed visually, most popular as sculpture of the Southwest Pueblo and Hopi tribes as a woman with many children attached to her. My rendition of this concept was inspired by my experience and knowledge of the stories told by my people and was developed through sketching. In addition to my painting, I sketch prolifically, often capturing the tip of an idea or concept that may lead to or inform a future painting. Everything I paint or sketch comes from my memories, dreams or imagination, or directly from real life, never from photographs or screens. The imagery or episodes coming from the mouth of the woman in “The Storyteller-Spiritual Sex II” all come from my visual language developed over years of exploration and in this particular painting, from my dreams and imagination.
Jim Denomie 1955-2022
What role does the moon play in your paintings?
Often the moon merely emphasizes the nite time portrayal of my spiritual paintings. For me it is the nite time when the magic and the mystical happen. And it is my preferred time to paint or sketch as I am almost always out in my studio until 2 or 3am, or later.
I love to sketch. I love seeing other artists’ sketches. Children’s drawings are the absolute best, because their abstractions, inventions and raw honesty just blow me away.
I always carry a sketchbook with me wherever I go, especially when I travel. To me, drawing or sketching is a form of note taking. It is a method of recording the lucid or fragmented thoughts passing through my mind, conscious or dreaming. Sometimes I see a story, sometimes a phrase, or sometimes just a title. It’s also a camera photographing the weird landscape (my imagination) that I dare to allow myself to journey through. It is a process where I try to do some fearless exploration. But almost always, the scenes in my mind are only temporary, fleeting, unexpected images of dreams, imagination and memories. Frequent sketching allows me to capture some of those images and to discover the ones that are unseen.
When I was an art student at the University of Minnesota, I met a musician playing his guitar and singing songs for tips on the sidewalks in Dinkytown. His name was Jerry Rau. Jerry was a Vietnam vet and a gentle soul, and he and I became friends. One day I mentioned to him about sketching an idea before I forgot it. He told me that he always carries a notebook with him explaining, “You never know when a song will come to you. You think you will remember it, but sometimes when you turn your attention for even a second, they float away, like a dream. If you don’t write it down, it will go to the next songwriter. And if he doesn’t catch it, it goes to the next. And if he doesn’t catch it, they all end up with Bob Dylan.”
Sketching is also a method of exploring. Sometimes being able to see only the beginning of a story, a song, a poem, the artist begins illustrating an idea, not knowing what or where it will lead to. Like a clown who pulls what he thinks is just one handkerchief from his shirt pocket, he pulls out cloth after cloth, one idea leading to another until you have a more complete vision of the story or song.
For some time now, I have thought of my sketches as lyrics to a song and coloring and painting my sketches as putting those words to music. Adding color and the abstraction of loose brushstrokes brings a new dimension of the sketch to life. The drawing becomes a leaping-off point and is eventually abandoned as the artist responds to what is evolving right in front of him/her. While translating a sketch to a painting, the artist starts painting but sometimes begins to experience new inspirations right there at the easel (pulling new or different handkerchiefs from his shirt pocket). These realizations make the process original (again) and the sketch and the painting become two different works of art, each significant. Sometimes I find it necessary to make quick little sketches or studies to assist a painting in progress as new ideas emerge or because I feel the need to alter the composition.
For me, sketching is instrumental for evolving ideas and for understanding the incomplete.
Mitchell Pluto 